Crowd stops suspected gunman after two are shot at Folklife Festival

HECTOR CASTR, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By HECTOR CASTRO, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Saturday, May 24, 2008

Police detain a suspect after a shooting at the Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center on Saturday. The fight occured during a relatively peaceful afternoon at the festival next to a drum circle. Two bystanders were shot when one man reportedly pistol whipped another. Witnesses said the gun went off during the fight and two people were wounded -- a woman shot in the leg and a man shot in the hand.
Photo: Joshua Trujillo/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Four people saw the suspected gunman running through the crowd, jumped him and held him until police arrived at what was by then a chaotic scene of screaming, fleeing people.

A band playing nearby, which had stopped when the gunfire erupted, picked up the music again, hoping to calm the crowd.

Seattle firefighters arrived to treat the wounded and officers handcuffed the suspected gunman, marching him through the throng of people. His face bloodied, the man was taunted by many in the crowd, some of them throwing trash at him.

One man got into the suspect's face, screaming, "This is a peaceful event!"

Botello, 25, said she and her friends were just upset the incident happened at all.

"I've been here every year since I was about 12, always in the same spot, and this is the first time anything like this has happened," she said.

The Northwest Folklife Festival is a three-day event that continues through Monday, featuring folk, ethnic and traditional performers. This is the 37th annual festival to be held at Seattle Center.

Botello predicted that at future festivals, safety precautions would be tighter, restrictions more severe, because of Saturday's violence.